by Stasia Black
Rafe was glad his usual expression was one of bored disinterest because he couldn’t have pretended to smile for this fucktard even if a knife was to his throat.
“Tomorrow, sir,” Henry said, smiling wide and rubbing a hand in circles on Shay’s back. Rafe couldn’t tell if she was comforted by the gesture or if it strung her even tighter. “We thought it might make for an excellent PR moment, you standing by the unveiling of your portrait.”
Rafe ignored Henry as he prattled on about what good press it would be. To him, one thing had become very clear during this lunch. He’d heard mumblings about the President’s lavish habits but hadn’t wanted to believe it. Unfortunately, this visit was only confirming everything he’d heard.
It was time for a new president.
The question was: what was he going to do about it?
Chapter 27
ERIC ‘THE COMMANDER’ WOLFORD
“I can’t believe you just sat there smiling while that— that man—” Sophia broke off with a frustrated expulsion of breath. “And after those gorillas dragged Drea out, how could you—”
Eric shook his head at his daughter as they strode away from the hotel down the sidewalk. He’d suggested the walk because he knew Sophia would have just this kind of reaction and there was no way to know who would be listening. President Goddard was paranoid enough to have every room in the place bugged, but especially the suites for visiting dignitaries.
“I should never have brought you,” Eric muttered under his breath. “You or Drea.”
Sophia let out another outraged noise, stopping in her tracks but Eric took her elbow and propelled her forward again. “Keep walking.”
She must have heard the seriousness in his tone because she obeyed. Good girl. If there was one thing he could say for his daughter, it was that as much as he’d always tried to shelter her, she wasn’t as naïve as he wished she could be.
All he’d ever wanted was for her to have a safe, normal childhood. Or as normal as possible considering the world had ended. At least the world as they’d known it. Every decision he’d made for the past eight years, every step he’d taken—they’d all been for her.
And still, he made so many mistakes.
Including bringing her on this trip.
He shook his head at himself. They walked a block in silence and then he risked what he hoped looked like a casual glance over his shoulder.
Two of the Palace Guards were following about twenty feet behind them. That was to be expected. What worried Eric was whoever he couldn’t see.
Still, out here in the open on the well-lit street—something that was still so strange he found himself constantly looking around at the novelty of it—they should be relatively safe.
“They have so much energy they waste it on streetlights,” Sophia murmured, looking around. She looked half in awe and half appalled.
Eric’s chest went tight as she echoed his thoughts. His beautiful daughter. God, she slayed him. She was so much like him. Too much. Stubborn. Determined. When she decided she wanted something, God help anyone who got in her way.
In other ways, though, she was all Pamela. Her mother had been beautiful and good. Too good for him, that was for damn sure.
“What are you going to do about Drea?” Sophia asked, blue eyes blinking over to him.
Eric shook his head again. That was his Sophia. So blind in her trust of him. She thought he could fix anything. Do anything. No mountain too high, no bridge too far. That was his little girl.
He let out a long sigh. “President Goddard is very different from the General Goddard I once knew. He was a good man once. But power…” He trailed off, then continued in a lower voice. “You remember that quote from your civics lesson in seventh grade I made you memorize—power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely?”
She frowned but nodded.
“There was a reason I wanted you to focus on that lesson. It’s important in the world we live in now more than ever.” He was quiet a moment as he shook his head, thinking about the scene back at the hotel. “Power. It’s changed the James Goddard I knew.”
The furrow between Sophia’s brows only grew deeper. “But you have power. It hasn’t changed you.”
Eric laughed and put an arm around her shoulder, pulling her close and planting a kiss on the side of her head as they continued walking. Never change, he wanted to say. At the same time—no, he knew these were things she needed to understand. She needed armor against the world. She needed to know the way things really worked.
“Jacob’s Well is a different kettle of fish than all this, honey.” He gestured around them at the lit-up buildings that towered on both sides of the street. “And so is being the President of a whole country. I’m just the governor of a small territory.”
Sophia shook her head. “You might not have absolute power, but you said power corrupts. Any power. But you have power and it hasn’t corrupted you at all. All you want to do is help people. It’s why you’ve made Central Texas South such a safe place. And you take care of all the women. You have power and you’re still a good man.”
He dropped his arm and looked at her as they walked. She was so beautiful with her long auburn hair and those inquisitive blue eyes. The light scattering of freckles across her nose still reminded him of the little girl she’d been even as he could see the woman she was becoming. How could he tell her that he was just as bad as the President in some ways? Everything he’d ever done since being dishonorably discharged from the Army eight and a half years ago was absolutely for selfish, personal gain.
It was just that the things he wanted weren’t money or fancy wine and food. They were safety and happiness. Namely, his daughter’s safety and happiness.
And he would sacrifice anything, do anything—double deal, double-cross, and double down if it meant providing his and Pamela’s daughter the life she deserved. If only he could give her all the things he’d failed to provide his family with when he should have been with them instead of fighting in pointless wars halfway around the world for almost all of Sophia’s youngest years. He’d spend the rest of his life paying penance for his many, many failures. And that was fine with him. He didn’t matter. Only Sophia did.
“You’re nothing like that horrible man back there,” Sophia continued vehemently, her cheeks going pink in her anger. “Drea was right to stand up to him.”
Ice trickled through Eric’s veins at her words and he froze, dragging her to a stop with him. “What Drea did tonight was foolish.”
Sophia flinched at his harsh words, but he didn’t soften his tone. “We might not like James Goddard the man, but as President Goddard, he built a cohesive country out of the chaos after the bombs dropped. More importantly, he commands the largest army of all the territories and that simple fact holds warring factions in check.”
Eric lifted a hand to his daughter’s cheek. “Listen to me, honey. He doesn’t have to be a good man to be a great man.”
But Sophia just kept shaking her head and when she backed away from his touch, she looked betrayed. “So you’ll abandon Drea? Just like that?”
The disappointment in her eyes stung, Eric couldn’t lie. He’d always known this day would come. Honestly, he was surprised it had taken this long—the day when he fell off his pedestal in his daughter’s eyes. The day he stopped being her hero. It was inevitable.
But her welfare had been the one guiding star in every decision since he vowed to do right by Pamela and their daughter as he stood over Pamela’s grave. And it led him now. What was best for Sophia?
Certainly not picking a fight with the President of the Republic. No matter how much he increasingly disagreed with the man’s personal choices and public policy decisions.
He wouldn’t have brought her if President Goddard hadn’t insisted on meeting the daughter Eric had bragged about for years. And of course he’d assumed Goddard’s own daughter Abigail would be there too.
But it had been another damn mistake on h
is part. As for letting Drea come along… Jesus, she’d just made such a nuisance of herself, demanding to have an audience with the President to plead the case for sending a rescue mission to Nomansland. And look how that had turned out.
Eric pulled Sophia into his arms. For several moments, she was stiff as a board against his chest. But he just kept holding her. His sweet, precious little girl. When had she gone and grown up on him? Her nineteenth birthday was only a couple of months away.
He’d overheard her talking excitedly about her own lottery. He was more than tempted to move the lottery age to twenty before then. Especially with the infiltration of Travis’s spies in Jacob’s Well. And that mess with the lottery box disappearing for the newest girl. Yes it had been found quickly but it only exposed another of the many weaknesses of the system. And as far as Travis’s spy network, their investigations had turned up nada so far.
Jeffries had mysteriously ended up dead before they could interrogate him. There had only been fifteen minutes between the time his betrayal was revealed in the town square and the time Eric got to the Security Squadron for the interrogation. Only to find Jeffries dead on the ground, his throat slit. He’d told everyone it had happened in the crush of the crowd, when they’d realized what Jeffries had done and turned on him.
But in reality, Eric knew it had to be one of Travis’s other spies. It killed Eric knowing that it could be any one of the men he surrounded himself with every day. It was hell questioning the loyalty of everyone and anyone. Constantly being on guard against overheard conversations. Watching what information you fed to who, trying to catch people in a lie to ferret out moles… It had all taken its toll on him, he wouldn’t lie. He’d been the Commander of Jacob’s Well for eight years, but sometimes it felt like twice that. On the bad days, it felt like a century.
He squeezed Sophia even more tightly. He hadn’t protected her this long just to throw her to the wolves at the last moment.
She finally gave in, relaxing against him and squeezing him back. “What are we gonna do, Daddy?”
He breathed out in relief even as she broke his damn heart. She was still his little girl. He wasn’t ready for the day she outgrew him. He wasn’t sure he ever would be.
“We’ll give it a few days, sweetheart. The president is paranoid. Not without reason. He’d lived through multiple assassination attempts. Drea confronting him like that in his personal meeting place was the worst thing she could have done.”
“But she was just trying to—”
“I know,” he cut off her objection, smoothing a hand down the back of her hair just like he used to do when she was little. “I know, honey. He’ll calm down in a few days.” After he sobers up, he added silently.
“I’ll petition him to release her as a favor to me.” It would mean owing the man a marker. If that wasn’t enough to get Drea free, he could always offer free water rights to the well for a year.
“One way or another,” Eric continued, “we’ll get her back. I never leave a man behind. Or a woman.”
“Oh Daddy!” Sophia repeated, but this time her voice was full of her usual hero worship.
Eric sighed and held onto his daughter even tighter. Looked like he’d stay on his pedestal for one more day after all.
He could only hope the day he fell—and he had no doubt that he would fall—she’d eventually find it in her heart to forgive his many sins.
Chapter 28
HENRY
Henry woke up in the middle of the night only to find Shay wasn’t in the bed beside him. When they’d turned in, she’d been tucked between him and Charlie, but now only an indentation on her pillow marked where she had been.
After everything that had happened at dinner, they’d all been pretty demoralized and headed to bed early. Shay understandably hadn’t been in the mood for anything other than sleep and he knew she had things on her mind she wasn’t sharing. More than just worrying about Drea.
Nothing about this trip was going the way Henry wanted. They were in the most luxurious, fully functional hotel in the whole of the Republic of Texas and it was being completely wasted. He’d wanted to show Shay the world, to wine and dine her…
If only that fat, paranoid fuck hadn’t ruined everything.
Henry’s mouth soured as he rolled out of bed. Neither Charlie or Gabriel asleep beside him stirred. Rafe had left after dinner to go catch up with some of his air force buddies who still lived in town. Guess he wasn’t back yet.
Henry pulled the bedroom door shut behind him as he went hunting around the suite for Shay.
She wasn’t in the living room area or the little kitchenette. But then he noticed the sliding glass door to the patio was open.
He walked out and saw her dressed in a long, flowing silk nightgown, standing against the balustrade.
God she was beautiful. Like had happened before when he looked at her, her beauty struck him so hard his heart seemed to stop in his chest. The longer he knew her, the more beautiful she got.
He must have made some noise because she looked over her shoulder at him.
“Couldn’t sleep either?” he asked, trying to keep it light. She looked… forlorn, maybe that was the word for it. Anxious and sad in some deep way. He never pressed. But he’d noticed her mood grow more and more distant lately and it concerned him.
She gave a small shrug, then looked back out at the view of the lit-up city. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
“The most beautiful thing I have ever seen.”
He wasn’t talking about the city. His eyes stayed locked firmly on her. Her neck sloped so perfectly to the most gorgeous pair of breasts on God’s green earth. Her nipples were hard little pebbles underneath the thin silk fabric. Was it from the cool breeze or because she felt his stare?
His cock stirred at the sight.
When she next looked his way, she quickly averted her gaze, lowering her head.
Henry joined her, leaning his elbows on the ledge, forearm grazing hers. Good Lord, just the merest touch of her skin had all his nerve endings firing. How did she do that?
He didn’t say anything for long minutes, hoping that maybe out here, just the two of them, she’d feel like she could finally open up to him.
But the time just passed and he could tell she was content for it to continue that way. It was another thing he’d never experienced with a woman before. That just their presence was enough. To be with another person and not have to fill the space with chatter. Not to have to spend every second worrying about impressing or one-upping or thinking about how to finagle your next promotion…
Shay was peaceful.
Henry hadn’t had peaceful in a very, very long time.
If ever.
Finally, maybe five minutes later, it was him who broke the silence. “It’s mind-blowing to come here and have everything be just like it was. Like the last ten years never even happened.”
Shay scoffed. “Except for the fact there’s barely any women. And apparently the ones that are here are given out like Christmas bonuses to the rich.”
Henry winced. “I am so very sorry about Goddard. He gets worse every year.” The man was a pig but tonight’s display had really been beyond the pale. Henry turned so he was looking straight at Shay. And again she took his breath away.
Would it ever get old? This constantly being stunned by her?
And again, he had the thought—in all his years, out of all the many things he’d strived for and achieved, none of them had felt like this. None of it compared to being with Shay.
None of it compared to wanting her and being wanted in return.
It didn’t seem to be a passing thing, either. Not just lust or the excitement of a new attraction.
The past two months had opened up parts of him… God, he hadn’t even thought he’d had the capacity for— And then she came and—
“To tell the truth though,” he said, eyes still locked on her, “the world outside Jacob’s Well could be falling apart and I would
not care. Because I have you. And you are everything.”
Even as he said the words, he knew they were true.
Shay looked down again like his words embarrassed or even upset her. It was a look she’d been getting a lot lately whenever anyone in the clan complimented her. Enough beating around the bush. It was time to get to the bottom of it.
He took her hand and pulled her away from the ledge. She came where he led, a small crease between her brows.
“What are you—oh!” she exclaimed as he pushed her up against the glass of the hotel window.
“For a long time, that was all I could think about.” He waved a hand behind him at the city even as he pressed his pelvis into hers. Even the brief moments of friction had him hardening almost to his full length.
Shay let out a small moan and her hips thrust restlessly against him.
God she was always so hot for it. Even with the five of them to satisfy her, she kept them on their toes. She was the most magnificent thing he’d ever—
“What do you mean? You wanted to come live here?”
He shrugged, pulled back into the moment by her question. “I wanted what this city represents. I wanted to be wealthy. Powerful. I wanted to be at the center of everything. To live some place where I could be an important man.” He laughed self-deprecatingly as he leaned in to nibble on her ear. “I wanted to be a big fish in a big pond.”
Shay hissed out a quick breath and arched into him. “And now? Has that changed?”
He pulled back and met her eyes. There was enough ambient light from the city and the full moon to make out her features. Her beauty really was fucking breathtaking. But it was more than that. He’d known beautiful women before. And after five minutes of talking to them, they grated on his nerves so much he could barely stand their faces anymore.
But Shay. Every day he spent in her company only made him want to spend more time with her.
His whole life, nothing came before his work and his relentless ambition. Nothing.
